


a brighter star—

by isometric



Series: the shore to your ocean [1]
Category: South Park
Genre: Dragon New Kid, Gen, Mention Of Genocide, Orc Princess Kenny, Princess Kenny McCormick, Revenge, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Stick of Truth AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-07-18 12:03:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16118063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isometric/pseuds/isometric
Summary: —that burns, and burns, and burns(the empty thrones, the silent halls; she comes apart in his arms)





	a brighter star—

**Author's Note:**

> ~~my English teacher, weeping: there are so many semicolons and em dashes~~  
>  me, crying tears of regret: I don't accept constructive criticism
> 
>  
> 
> apologies in advance for extremely self-indulgent portrayal of the New Kid, onto whom I've entirely projected my unquenchable love for Princess Kenny

The throne room is empty.

They had known it would be. They’d fought the entire way here, bloodied and beaten, taken back all they could; and all that was left was the palace, long abandoned.

An entire civilization had risen and fallen within these walls. After the looting and the burying, the rainwater floods and the years of absence, the palace is cold, lifeless. Not even the animals dare enter, when the echoes of past horror still linger.

But still, the throne room calls to her.

She takes one step, then another, towards the thrones looming tall and stately. Dova hears her thoughts, the bond between a dragon and its chosen —there, where a great table had once stood, Kevin at the head of the council; there, by the curtains, where Karen would hide to peek on the petitions; Mother and Father, smiling down from their seats— hears her heart stutter.

The princess takes one last step, and her bad knee gives beneath her. Dova just manages to catch her to spare it the impact against the marble floor, lowers her gently to ease the old injury, the result of an enchanted elven arrow that won’t heal properly even after all these years. She trembles in his hold, shaking through her grief; the knot in her lungs, an iron weight, burns bright in his mind.

And through it all, the tears he feels as if his own, the hollowness nestling in her bones, she hasn’t made a sound. All those years, she’d wiped her eyes dry, taken up the mantle, led the survivors through hardship after hardship, and he’d never heard her cry once. Now they are back home, the once-gleaming palace of the illustrious Orkish Kingdom— only it is no longer home, just a silent, forgotten monument to a dead kingdom, where its heir has finally returned, equally silent and forgotten.

“Dova,” she calls. He nods in attention. “What good is vengeance to me when I am done?”

He doesn’t have an answer.

“Would that it might bring back the dead, return us our loved ones—” Her voice breaks, and she takes the breath back, suppressing it till it yields, controlled again. “But it will not do that. It will not make me a better ruler. My people, these lands... It will not restore anything to what it was before.”

That, Dova knows. Hears the words she doesn’t say, the part of her that still wishes for peace, wants nothing more than for all this suffering to stop. The part that wants to rebuild.

“And yet, Dova, I cannot quell this anger in my heart that calls for blood. That calls for justice, life for a life. I should know better—” Another pause, another breath. She repeats herself, self-condemning, “I should know better.”

Dova looks up, to the thrones. The silent hall, where nothing will live again. Where there had once been people, talking and laughing, living and breathing, so long ago. The last time there had been life here, it was probably the raiders stealing what they could, or maybe the orcs who’d come to gather the bodies for burial. The last time he’d been here, he’d dragged a little girl behind him, blocking her sight of the remains of her siblings he could not protect, as they fled the slaughter.

In the end, neither the humans nor the elves could be trusted.

In the end, the orcs were too naive. Thinking that they could share the power of the Staff without admiration turning into covetous envy. Thinking that the elves could temper human greed, when their own desire for control drove them just as much towards that same lust for power. Who would have thought that the humans and the elves, who could only tolerate the other when the orcs played peacekeeper, would one day find common ground against their mediator?

They should have known better.

But still, war begets war, and hatred leads nowhere.

But still, they don’t have a choice.

The princess moves to stand, and he helps her up, supports her weight till she finds her balance, can push past his embrace. She walks towards the thrones, up the stairs leading to them, each step careful and measured, only stopping once she’s close enough to reach for them.

She does not reach for the thrones. She does not touch them. There is no point. Theirs is a crumbling kingdom, one that will never rise again. Too few had escaped the methodical massacre, and they can only hope to survive out in the neighbouring kingdoms. The grief in her condenses, until it becomes a cold, sharp-edged thing winding through her veins. It eats through the pieces of her, and he can do nothing to stop its spread.

The piece of Dova’s heart that connects to hers slows to a heavy, unrelenting beat.

She looks back to him, a stranger he doesn’t recognize. The blank malevolence in her eyes, the quiet vicious turns her thoughts take; this person who hungers for blood, he doesn’t know her anymore. But she is still his chosen, the princess he’d bound himself to. Here they are, him the last of his kind, her the last of her line. He can’t lose her too.

“Dova,” she says, her voice clear and light, a siren’s call. “As we are now, we cannot hope to survive.”

He nods. Between the raiders and roving bands of humans and elves, they’ve drained every last resource. They don’t have any more choice.

“I will have every last survivor file down their tusks and round their ears,” she says. “I will have them live on in the human kingdom.”

He nods again. Here, he braces himself for the words he already hears in his heart.

“I will go find the rulers of Larnion Forest and Kupa Kingdom,” she says, turning back to the thrones. “No matter how long it may take, I will make them answer for what they’ve done. And then after that— After that—”

In his mind, he feels hers unravel. Feels her neatly cut out the part that once held compassion. Feels her bad knee pulse, a burning hurt that threatens to swallow her whole.

Dova walks up to her, offers her an arm to brace against. She’s trembling again, he notes. She’s shaking apart; her personhood is coming apart, nothing left but rage honed into an instrument of retribution. He closes his eyes, wondering whether he’s mourning or steeling himself.

“I am going to take back the Staff of Truth,” says the princess, the uncrowned queen of Hollow Falls. “And like what they did to us, I am going to kill every last one of them.”

**Author's Note:**

> ~~listen, his name is literally Dovahkiin, how could I _not_ make an arrow to the knee joke???~~


End file.
